So this “New Rhetoric” seems to based around the idea of not just being in language and text, but in the combination of text and images, and using semiotics to illustrate it.

Part of this new rhetoric is taking on the Humanistic approach to sell the idea. Maybe because of the use of semiotics, or just because that’s how people relate to visual communication these days, but everything is a lot more sensitive to the emotions, feelings and associations of people.

As Umberto Eco states: “Almost all human reasoning about facts, decisions, opinions, beliefs, and values is no longer considered to be based on the authority of absolute Reason, but instead is seen to be intertwined with emotional elements, historical evaluations and pragmatic motivations”, so the new rhetoric is about relating to the viewers on a personal, open level. Eco again states, “consider the persuasive discourse not as a subtle, fraudulent procedure, but as a technique of ‘reasonable’ human interaction.”

I am assuming that this new approach has developed the new approach in marketing that Nick Bell mentioned? About building long term relationships with consumers. Has it triggered the new “Brand Experience Design?”

Is it also provoking a new type of Information Design? In what way is it changing it?

“Corporate identity will have succeeded for a company such as this if favourable public comprehension of it is not based on fact but instead is utterly emotional” – Nick Bell.

The emotional content is becoming a big factor in advertising, as Cialdini’s article states in The Science of Persuasion it all lies in six basic tendencies of human behaviour. It is a wonder why it took advertising so long to apply this technique of human interaction, Bell says it wasn’t really evident until 2006 (excluding graphic design).

This creates a closer, stronger connection but also sets the brand up for a greater fall if it fails to uphold its promises.

In regards to the development of information design, it is difficult to be totally objective about representing information graphically, automatically the designer has influenced the decision on how the data is ready which in turn influences the reader’s perception on the matter. Information design in its application in advertising and combining with emotive rhetoric can produce very powerful visuals. How do you see it changing?

Well, that’s the whole point I guess. That information design is not about the pure translation of facts but about using rhetoric to help the public to understand the information in the way the designer (or researcher) has perceived it. They have to try and translate things in a way people will find more accessible.